


out, damned spot

by llwydion



Series: vinegar and cold water for removing bloodstains (KHR works) [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Sawada Tsunayoshi's going to destroy you, You thought wrong, life isn't just daises, you thought it would be a good idea to take lambo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 12:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14694405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: Because honestly, they're the bloody mafia. How are we as a fandom forgetting how the Ninth's sons died? There is no disconnect here between the worlds; Tsuna just hasn't stepped into the world of the real mafia.(alternatively: there is a kidnapping, and its ensuing fallout)





	out, damned spot

**Author's Note:**

> title from Macbeth, as you may have guessed  
> (knocks on wood, multiple times)

He remembers later, in frightening clarity, how the events transpire.

He’s eighteen, in Italy for the summer – Nono and Reborn had insisted, and who is he to refuse? Plus his Guardians wanted to see Gokudera’s homeland, and it was a good opportunity for a fun summer trip – but Italy, as tourists know it, is nothing more than a glittering veneer that covers the rotting disease that starts in Sicily and ends in death and bloodshed across the country. It’s glamorous, deadly, and absolutely empty, and Tsuna hates it with all his might.

They’re at the Vongola mansion in Palermo (because a hotel room is an easy target for rival clans who are willing to take a shot at attacking the heir, who is a weak and relatively unknown Japanese brat), and it’s a balmy afternoon. Tsuna had lunch with Nono, in which they discussed everything fun and absolutely nothing important. There have been no explosions yet today, which Tsuna thinks is a record. Having any of his more volatile Guardians in the same room is a recipe for disaster via property damage and paperwork. He settles in for a relaxing afternoon. Maybe a nap? After all, Reborn’s out of town today for some business and Nono is busy.

Gokudera bursts into his bedroom about two hours later, holding a phone in his hand.

“Tenth, it’s the Motisi. They’ve got the idiot cow.”

* * *

The Motisi clan are a reasonably well-known family in the area, unaffiliated with the Vongola but not outright antagonistic towards them. They deal mainly in drugs and the ever-profitable market of “protection” rackets, though they dabble a bit in art theft and have in their employ a few well-known assassins. None as famous as Reborn, no, who is still the Number One Hitman, but their names are on the first few pages of Fuuta’s list. Hibari ran a protection racket, back during the summer festivals in Namimori, and quite a formidable one too. Tsuna still remembers how his men trashed another stand for not paying the fee, and how later those same men trashed that group of upperclassmen.

The Motisi have never launched any sort of offensive against the Vongola. At least, not until now. Kidnapping a Guardian is not a simple crime, not like protection racketeering or contract killing; if handled poorly on their end, the Motisi run the risk of being wiped out. If handled poorly on the Vongola’s end, Lambo could be in great, great danger. The symbolism of taking another family’s man, especially one as powerful as the Vongola’s, is not something to be taken lightly. And the Motisi are good at cunning actions like this.

Not that Tsuna doesn’t have faith in his Lightning Guardian, who is nine but has seen far more of the darkness of the underworld that Tsuna would like; no, he’s afraid for Lambo, who is his little brother, only nine years old and full of bravado with little real understanding of how hostages are treated. Being a Guardian is different from doing the dirty work.

Gokudera killed his first man when he was six, during a kidnapping gone wrong. Mukuro slaughtered his family for experimenting on him. And Hibari has an entire _group_ of people running cleanup for him (which, just, what? They’re the Disciplinary Committee, not the Hibari Corpse Disposal Crew. At least, not yet).

Tsuna killed a man when he was fourteen. Granted, he wasn’t a very nice man, but there is something to be said about willfully, knowingly ending someone’s life. In flames.

So the fact that the Motisi have Lambo is a huge problem.

(He ignores the voice in his head that sounds a lot like Reborn’s, telling him about how the Ninth’s three sons all died.)

* * *

The Motisi send out a ransom request.

“Your Lightning Guardian,” someone says, through a voice modulator (oh, so clever, but not clever enough; the number’s not a blocked one, and voice modulators don’t change the rhythm or tics that are present in every individual’s speech), “for the return of our assets in the drug trade. You Vongola took over a few factories last week; we want them back.”

Tsuna is intent on ending the involvement of the mafia in all things drug-related, from cartels in Mexico to the illegal shipments that cross into Triad territory in Hong Kong, and to do so, he first needs to own all of those suppliers which produce the drugs. The Ninth is backing him in this endeavor; he hasn’t come of age yet, hasn’t finished his trials yet, and so he cannot be the sole voice of decision in this. He offered the same monetary compensation to every family who owned any sort of a drug-producing factory in Palermo.

The Motisi had been open to the bargain and had accepted it, last week. And yet, here they are.

“What say you, Vongola Decimo?”

His brother, or his quest for justice? Picking the drug factories is a cold-hearted thing to do, but it shows the rest of the clans that the Vongola are powerful (Reborn has been lecturing him on symbolic gestures recently, and how the smallest thing could be indicative of a large shift in power). But it is his little brother who is the price.

He’s evidently silent for too long, and the voice on the other end is speaking once more.

“Here, let me prove to you that we have your brother.” The rustling of cloth, a sharp “snick”, and his brother’s low, muffled cry.

His vision goes orange and his mind roars. His anger creeps over him and sharpens his focus.

“The Vongola do not deal with hostage-taking bastards like you. Stay put. If you touch him one more time…”

The voice on the other end chuckles and cuts the line. Tsuna burns the phone.

“We have a location,” Hibari says.

* * *

Twenty-three minutes later, they arrive at an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Palermo. This one’s owned by the Motisi, according to Hibari’s intel. It stands in a row of similarly-abandoned warehouses.

Tsuna strides up to the hangar door and knocks once, twice, thrice. He counts to ten, and when there is no answering movement, he lights one fist and smashes it through the metal. It tears like paper.

Behind him, Gokudera’s pulling out his bombs, Yamamoto’s readying his sword, and Hibari smirks.

“Wao.”

The inside of the warehouse is mostly dark, filled with tall stacks of pallets and boxes. Gokudera opens one. It’s filled with packages of white powder.

“Well, now we know where the Motisi put their drugs.”

Tsuna says nothing. His Intuition is pinging, and somehow he knows that Lambo is here. They must be quick.

“Gokudera, with me. Hibari, Yamamoto, that way. We’ll circle ‘round and meet up in the back.”

There is nothing more of interest in the warehouse proper, but there is a small back room. It is lit, and there are voices emanating from it.

“Trying to talk big, huh, you cow brat? Just you try. One more word and I swear I’ll end you.”

He sees Hibari and Yamamoto circling around, blocking off the rear exit.

“Heh, you idiots, he’ll be here any second, and where will you be?”

“You bastard!”

The rustle of cloth, a dull thud, and a pained gasp.

“Please, help me…”

Tsuna can’t stand it anymore. His veins are icy with rage, and he kicks down the door.

“I told you not to lay a hand on him.”

Lambo is bleeding freely from a cut on his forehead and from a deep gash on his left arm. His arms are bound behind his back, and there is a burly man holding him up by the throat, strangling him. His face is turning blue, and his eyes are mostly closed.

“Drop him now.”

The man turns. It is the boss’s right hand, and his face is twisted in a ghastly glee.

“What are you going to do if I don’t? I can kill him, right now.”

Lambo gasps and goes limp, and Tsuna loses it.

When he is aware of his surroundings again, he is standing in the midst of a downed group of bodies. None of them seem to be breathing.

He is holding the Motisi right hand by the throat, and for a moment he feels a vindicative pleasure in letting him dangle. The human throat is so delicate, and he feels the man’s windpipe working furiously under his fingers.

The man lets out a shallow gasp, and Tsuna drops him.

“Tell your boss to never touch any of my men ever again, or he’ll be answering to me.”

The right hand nods vigorously.

Gokudera is hastily talking into a phone. Yamamoto is tending to Lambo, who is thankfully stirring. Hibari is nowhere to be seen, but the shouts coming from the back door are suggestive.

“Lambo!”

* * *

Later, he is told that there was a group of men lying in ambush at the warehouse. They numbered fifty-three strong.

There were four survivors.

He hates this, hates what they stand for, hates the blood that stains his hands and the sins that weigh down on him with each step he takes.

Hates that ( _indirectly_ , Reborn says, _don’t take it to heart or you’ll never be able to move, Dame-Tsuna_ ) he is the cause of so many deaths, so much destruction. Four hundred years of torn families, brothers and fathers and sons who grew up with no other option than to tightly hold a pistol, or a knife, or the key of a phone, and to stain their hands and their blood and their lives. He is the cause of the young sons of _pentiti_ dissolving in acid, men bleeding out from the bullet holes that riddle their bodies, people around the country screaming and crying as their families are caught up in the senseless waves of mafia violence – terror bombings, indiscriminate shootings, “protection” schemes, the list goes ever on and ever back.

At fourteen, he stood in front of his predecessors and declared that he would destroy the mafia.

Fourteen is such a foolish, naïve age.

Enrico was killed in a gunfight. Massimo drowned. Only Federico’s bones were found.

One day, Tsuna wonders if his Guardians, if his family, will die in the same way. If he will die in the same way.

(In an alternate universe, he dies in a pitiful attempt to secure peace. In an alternate universe, he dies from a bullet to the chest.)

But Byakuran is gone, dispersed as ashes on the wind. And he has killed forty-nine men today.

Some of them died by his hands. If he tries hard enough, he can still remember the feeling of punching through flesh and bone like ripping through a wet tissue.

He wants to be sick, but his stomach is empty. His throat burns, but the tears do not come.

 _The Vongola began as a vigilante group to protect the people_ , Giotto said.

(What he couldn’t say is this: _I wanted the Vongola to be a good organization, something outside the law which would protect the people in the ways that the law could not. I wanted to bring happiness to my town._

 _I could not, because I was weak. And you, Sawada Tsunayoshi, you care like I cared. And because you care, you are weak._ )

* * *

The Vongola Inheritance Ceremony for the young Decimo is one of the most widely attended events in the history of the organization.

“He fights with his brows furrowed and his fists swung in the semblance of a prayer,” they whisper.

“He once burned a man alive,” they say.

“He wiped out the Motisi for kidnapping his Lightning Guardian,” they murmur.

“He’s like the second coming of Primo,” they hiss.

Tsuna tunes them all out. He landed on the list of the most wanted members in all of Italy last week.

Gokudera threw him a party.

Reborn kicked him.

All he wants to do is wash his hands until the bloodstains come out, but he knows they are forever stained.

**Author's Note:**

> gah.
> 
> I took some liberties with places and names (the Motisi are an actual family in Palermo, but the Corleonesi are the ones who are known for being violent and bloody IRL). If you're curious, drop me a message and we can chat about mafia and seedy underworld stuff! :)


End file.
